They Brought Me Men. We Chose Ourselves

By: Salma

To many Arab families, women are introduced to “good men” as if marriage were the most important milestone of their lives. These men, often doctors, engineers, or family acquaintances, are presented as “prospects,” as if our futures were contracts to be negotiated. The assumption is simple: a woman’s life is incomplete without a husband. But for queer Arab women, these rituals of matchmaking are not only uncomfortable; they are painful reminders of a truth we cannot openly speak.

We play along. We smile politely. We wear the dresses and give the expected answers. We nod when people say “inshallah,” though inside we are saying “please, no.” This is not just about politeness. It is about survival. To reject openly is to invite suspicion, shame, or even danger.

The reality is that many of us knew long before we had words for it that we were different. We noticed it in the way we looked at other girls, or in how disconnected we felt from the roles scripted for us. But growing up Arab means queerness is never presented as an option. Instead, it is framed as a sin, a disgrace, or something imported from the West. The message is clear: you cannot be both Arab and queer.

This narrative is false. Queerness has always existed in our cultures—visible in our poetry, our stories, our history. What erased it was not our heritage but colonial laws, rigid interpretations of religion, and social systems built on controlling women’s bodies and desires. To claim that being queer is “unnatural” or “foreign” is to ignore centuries of our own lived reality.

For queer Arab women, the challenge is not simply external. It is deeply personal. We learn to censor ourselves around family. We measure every word, every photo, every gesture. The fear is not only of legal punishment; it is of emotional exile, being cut off from our families, our communities, our sense of belonging. This constant negotiation, between honesty and survival, creates what I would call a “double life.” One life is lived publicly, palatable and acceptable. The other is lived in silence, often in secrecy, but no less real.

And yet, despite all this, queer Arab women continue to choose themselves. Not always loudly, but consistently. We resist by creating communities, by finding one another in coffee shops and private spaces, by writing our truths even when no one is supposed to read them. Some of us remain in hiding. Some of us leave. Some stay and fight in small but meaningful ways. And some, far too many, do not survive the weight of it all.

But what cannot be erased is the fact that we are here. We exist. We love. And our existence challenges the lie that queerness and Arabness are incompatible. In fact, our lives prove the opposite: that to be queer and Arab is not a contradiction but a continuation of who we have always been.

So to those who still insist our love is unnatural, I would argue this: what could be more natural than love that is chosen freely? What could be more honest than living in alignment with who we are? And what could be more destructive than forcing people to deny the deepest truths of themselves?

The time has come to recognise that queer Arab women are not anomalies, not mistakes, not foreigners in our own cultures. We are part of the present, and we will be part of the future.